Israel's nation-state law leaves Druze alienated

Last July, Israel passed a contentious law, dubbed the nation-state law, which declared self-determination in Israel “uniquely” the right of Jews, effectively classing all non-Jewish citizens as second-tier. Many Palestinian citizens of Israel were not surprised: the law, they said, codified a reality they were already living. But at the forefront of protests against the law were members of Israel’s Druze community, an ethno-religious Arab minority whose men, unlike the rest of Israel’s Arab and Palestinian citizens, have served in Israel’s military since 1956. The law forced many Druze to reckon with their identity and place in Israeli society – including military service and police work that, as Arabic speakers, often puts them at the forefront of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In the year since, activists who oppose compulsory military service say they have seen an increase in young Druze seeking to avoid the draft. Still, not serving can have repercussions, including jail for conscientious objectors. Israeli and Druze leaders, moreover, have long differentiated Druze from other Palestinian Arabs in Israel and the community has in turn received coveted socio-political privileges. Both those for and against the draft, however, say the longer the law remains unchanged – a central demand of Druze leaders that is still far off with Israel's far-right in power – the more some Druze are reckoning with their identity and place in Israel. “The feeling is not good, the feeling that the state betrayed the Druze,” said Amal As’ad, a prominent Israeli Druze leader and retired brigadier general whose brother died in combat in Gaza. “We were here before the state and will remain here.” Last July, Mr As’ad made headlines when he said that the country was becoming “an apartheid state” after passing the “evil and racist” law. This month, Mr As'ad told The National he was "proud to be Israeli" and like most of the community listed Arab as part of his identity and not Palestinian. When young Druze question military service, he said he tells them: “The country is ours, with or without the law… Therefore we will continue to contribute to our country, to strengthen it, to protect it. We will continue to enlist.” Still, he acknowledged, “There are many Druze who enlist today but with a very difficult feeling.” The broader discourse, moreover, speaks to quieter and complicated shifts in how Israel’s oft-overlooked Arab and Palestinian communities – 20 per cent of the population and growing – politically identify in both ways that do and do not fit the labels imposed on them. Through school curriculums, laws and language, Israel has long differentiated the Druze from Palestinians, both those who are citizens of Israel and those who are stateless and living in East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza Strip. That has long angered activists who say this is one means of dividing and controlling the Palestinian Arab community inside Israel and the Palestinian Territories. Hala Marshoud, an organiser with Urfod: Refuse and Your People Will Protect You, a group started in 2014 to support Druze opposing conscription, sees a slow yet steady shift against the status quo. Urfod advised at least 24 objectors in 2018, double the rate before the law. Ms Marshoud said the number was higher but the group does not keep exact figures. It is rare in Israel to object to conscription on conscientious grounds. In April, Kamal Zidan, an Arab Druze citizen of Israel, was held in solitary confinement in a military prison after he objected to serving because he identified as Palestinian. Instead, Druze, like some Jewish Israelis, seek out exemptions by arguing they are unfit to serve on physical and mental health grounds. The process can be daunting and Urfod offers help to navigate it. Ms Marshoud is not Druze herself, but said that as a Palestinian citizen of Israel she identified with Urfod’s mission. “Our main goal is to bring back Druze to the Palestinian society and to be part of the Palestinian society,” she said. There are about 120,000 Druze in Israel – less than 2 per cent of Israel’s nine million citizens, with other Druze communities in Lebanon and Syria. As Arabic speakers, Druze soldiers often serve in intelligence and policing roles that put them in frequent confrontations with Palestinians in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Most Druze in the occupied Golan Heights have rejected Israeli citizenship and therefore are not obligated to serve. Hamoudi, who declined to use his first name to protect his identity, decided against serving in Israel’s military a few years ago. Now 23 years old, he grew up in Yarka in the Western Galilee, “a pure Druze village”, where he only knew other Druze and studied a school curriculum designed for Druze. “I grew up as an Israeli Arab Druze,” he said. “Palestinian stuff and the Palestinian case and the word Palestinian was not said at home or at school, only in the context of conflict with Israel and Palestinians as terrorists.” He spoke Arabic mixed with Hebrew and “grew up around relatives who served in the army and work as police and in the army”. Like some poorer Jewish Israeli communities, some Druze villages depend on the military for employment. “The relationship basically became that your living is dependent on an institution like the Israeli army,” Hamoudi said. “This affects a lot of things about what people say, what they think they are allowed, what they think will harm their livelihood.” In this way, Druze feel “related to the establishment but at the same time feel that they can lose this attachment to the establishment,” he said. “So they worry a lot about their livelihood and how they need to prove their loyalty.” Nonetheless, Hamoudi did not like “the chauvinistic stuff about being a man” in the military, nor what he saw on the internet “about army practices in the West Bank and Gaza and how they went into homes like mine”. Choosing to identify with Palestinians also scared him, he said. He had internalised a sense that “no one wants to be Palestinian” as “being Palestinian is a very weak position to be in”. Seeking answers, he got in touch with Urfod and found a community “asking the same questions”. When his enlistment letter arrived, he knew what he would do. He went to the recruitment centre and claimed he was mentally unfit to serve. He said he was nervous about the implications – “worried that you'll be on a list for crazy people so you won’t get a [driver’s] license or [into] school or a job”. But conscientious objection was not an option he said, as he did not want to be imprisoned or socially blacklisted. Other friends, he said, also sought out exemptions. For most, it was not specifically “a nationalistic interest” like his, but rather a sense that military service would not benefit them. Still, Hamoudi’s outspoken identity politics – rejecting the taboo of identifying both as Palestinian and as Druze – make him an outlier. After Israel’s founding in 1948, Arab communities inside Israel were placed under military rule from 1951 to 1966. Older generations continue to fear that “you’ll pay a price and be put on a blacklist”, Hamoudi said. “So even if he acts on being Palestinian, people don't want to talk about it and make it public that they are against the establishment.” The Israeli military declined requests for comment on rates of Druze enlistment in the military. Ms Marshoud, however, said that the Israeli military’s official rate of enlistment – about 80 per cent of enlistment-age Druze men – overstates the actual number because it does not account for those who receive exemptions. There are already exemptions for religious Druze, like ultra-religious Jews. While the enactment of the nation-state law has been a tipping point for some Druze, others remain committed to the Israeli state despite their opposition to the law. Hala Naser Aldeen, a 21-year-old Druze citizen from Daliyat Al Karmel, remains proud of both her voluntary year of national service and her attendance at protests against the law. She said the nation-state law “hurt me”, but she would still do her service over again. “We go because we love our country.” Druze military leaders opposed to the law may have overblown the situation, she believes, as life for Druze in Israel is yet to change in a material sense. “There are many people who are waiting to see where it’s going.” Another resident of Daliyat Al Karmel, who asked to remain anonymous, agreed that “it’s still not clear” what the law’s impact will be but was more pessimistic. The 48-year-old father of two works in a small shop and admitted that he wished his 21-year-old son, currently in military service, had not enlisted. Three years ago, he felt this way because of money: the family’s finances are tight and the father wanted his son to go straight to work. But, he had concluded then, "it was required". Now, "we feel that it's getting worse and worse" for Druze every year, he said. If his son had to enlist now, the father said he is not sure how he would advise him. The parliamentary elections in September – and whether the legislation will be amended – will be a significant test, he said.

Israel's nation-state law leaves Druze alienated

Activists say they have seen an increase in young Druze seeking to avoid Israel’s military draft